An Intriguing Aegislash EV Spread

Hello Hat Lovers!

When we make EV spreads more complex than the simple 4/252/252 we often have to make some interesting choices based on our goals. Today I bring to you an interesting situation I encountered. Recently I was making an Aegislash spread. I wanted a specially defensive Aegislash that could survive other Aegislash’s Life Orb Shadow Ball. I didn’t know how much speed I wanted to use, so I decided to dump the rest in special attack. My first thought was that I would need a Calm nature, here is the spread I came up with:

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 172 SpA / 76 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature

These are the stats Aegislash achieved (note that the special attack stat is in Blade form since you can never utilize it in shield form):

167 / 63 / 171 / 192 / 198 / 81

Out of curiosity I decided to make a Modest spread to see if I could achieve the same stats. I came up with the following:

EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 36 SpA /212 SpD / 4 Spe
Modest Nature

This spread reached the following stats:

167 / 63 / 171 / 192 / 197 / 81

At a cursory glance it appears that the Calm nature is superior to Modest, but the Modest spread is arguably the better spread. The reason for this is what these spreads do for Blade form. In Blade form the Calm set’s special defence stat is 88. The Modest spread reaches 97. Anyone who has played Aegislash before knows that while you always try to avoid taking hits in Blade form is does happen and you can still survive weaker hits. For this reason I consider the Modest nature to be better for this set. Calm nature still has merit for Aegislash, but not for what I was trying to do with it.

So when making an EV spread for Aegislash, keep in mind what stats it reaches in both of its forms.